The present invention relates generally to a robot control method, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to a system, method, and computer program product for dynamically changing a robot's mission (e.g., by reconfiguring its sequence of actions) based on an interaction with a user and assessment of the user's emotional state.
Autonomous robots perform tasks without being controlled by humans. As such, robots often need to cope with chaotic and unpredictable variables to gain information about the environment and then operate. The robots are particularly desirable in dirty, dangerous, inaccessible or boring tasks (e.g., volcano exploration, domestic cleaning, deliveries to hotels rooms, warehouses operations, military/assault operations, workplace safety, disaster/survival situation, among others). In particular, domestic robots are simple robots dedicated to a single task (or mission) in home use. They are used in simple but unwanted jobs, such as vacuum cleaning, floor washing, and lawn mowing.
Conventionally, robot owners can only ‘tell’ cleaning robots when to start/stop, but not how the robots should perform a given mission. That is, when users share the environment with active robots, the users may face undesirable or strange situations and have no clue of the robots' rationale behind an ongoing action. In other words, although the robots' sequence of actions to achieve a high-level goal or mission (e.g., clean the house) might be correct, the robot's actions may be interpreted as unintelligent (e.g., the robot visiting the same room several times instead of only giving it one pass) from the user's perspective. This scenario can have direct impact not only in users' emotional state (e.g., mood, patience), but also in the human-robot relationship and brand trust.
Conventional solutions do not consider users' emotional data in the process to dynamically change or adapt a given mission or to generate the most suitable explanation about actions/tasks of an autonomous mission-oriented robot.